


something very wrong

by santanico



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Blow Jobs, Consolation, Dirty Talk, F/F, The Stolen Century, Vaginal Fingering, complicated adult emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:11:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: It’s just sex, Lup reasons, Lucretia fast asleep, legs sprawled over the messy sheets later that night.





	something very wrong

**Author's Note:**

> \- bless my gf carly audenrain for reading this over and reassuring me and helping me make it better ❤️

Like most things that develop into larger, scarier things, the first time is an accident.

Accident isn’t the right word, but Lup can think of nothing better.

It’s been three years since she’s been properly touched.

Lucretia’s hair is long, dark, and spindles in ringlets down her back.

Their fingers tangle together on Lucretia’s thigh under the table and even as Lucretia freezes over dinner (Taako had made beans - so many beans - and spread them over bread, vegetables roasted and seasoned with a salt he’d discovered on this year’s planet), Lup knows she’s already accepted it.

After that night, they don’t talk about it.

They don’t avoid each other, by any means. It’s impossible to.

But Lucretia never acknowledges the intimacy. She sets her tongue on the tip of her pen but rarely says more than a sentence or two at a time, shooting small smiles Lup’s way.

Lup aches, but she gets the hint.

-

Lucretia meets Lup in the hallway on a blisteringly cold night.

It’s year sixteen. Lup doesn’t know how many pages she’s gone through, keeping track of the dates and writing about their choices. This planet is almost entirely ice. Silent. White, rabbit-type critters bouncing over stretches of solid landscape, faster than any rabbit Lup’s ever seen.

Lucretia, standing in the dim hallway, her hip cocked and wearing just a night-slip while Lup is wrapped up in her coziest pair of pajamas.

Lucretia, backing Lup against the wall of her bedroom moments later, catching her mouth, sucking hard on her bottom lip, touching until they both burst at the seams, shaking and laughing and sweating. _Heat_. Oh, Lup’s missed this.

But then again, quiet.

Lucretia smiles at her a little more. They chat like normal people. But Lucretia’s intimate secrets stay locked away and thus, so do Lup’s. She isn’t going to open up when Lucretia offers her nothing except the occasional heat of her cunt.

-

Quicker, this time. Year eighteen. Lup is starting to lose track.

Lucretia whispers, “I’m sorry,” and then kisses Lup.

It’s the first time they’ve kissed like this. Lack of urgency and softness and Lucretia doesn’t push. She rests her hands on Lup’s hips and then draws back, hovers and hesitates.

Lup takes the opportunity as she sees it, and they end up on the floor, then in Lucretia’s bed, and Lucretia’s mouth is warm and tender on Lup’s breasts, between her thighs, along the length of her cock.

It’s just sex, Lup reasons, Lucretia fast asleep, legs sprawled over the messy sheets later that night. Intimacy and sex are two different things, and Lup doesn’t need both. She brushes away Lucretia’s curls. She’s cut them this year, and they barely brush her shoulders now. It must be the heat, Lup thinks. She had recently shaved half of the back of her head, though she still had some length on the rest of her.

Lup touches the spot on her neck Lucretia had sucked at until Lup bucked her hips. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s sensitive to the touch.

When Lup wakes up, there’s hardly a trace of Lucretia left in the room.

-

Lup and Barry find their love of music.

Lup starts to remember what trust is like again. Besides Taako, those feelings were difficult.

She confides to Barry, “It isn’t that I don’t know that everyone has my back, but.” She closes her eyes as his bore into her. He sees her in ways no one else does, and it hurts on some nights. She wants to shove him away, never look at him again. “I’m just...tired.”

“I know,” Barry says. He squeezes her shoulder.

“Is it wrong? To...to love someone under these circumstances?”

Barry tilts his head to frown at her. “Dunno what you mean,” he says, and his voice is soft, because he knows exactly what she means.

Lup just smiles, shakes her head. “You’re right. Sorry.”

Barry, because he loves her, lets it go.

-

It bursts in year twenty-five.

For Lup, the years drag. Taako says they shouldn’t. It’s not like they’d be aging in the real world anyway. He’s picked up crocheting, after finding yarn on a planet eerily similar to their own. Magnus seems to enjoy never aging, commenting on the slickness of his appearance. Merle is tired, but determined, always keeping an upbeat attitude.

Lup finds Lucretia in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror.

“Sorry,” Lup says. She’s standing right behind Lucretia, who looks at her in the mirror.

“It’s alright,” Lucretia says, and doesn’t turn around. She leans forward against the sink, her hips reaching just above the height of it, peering at her reflection. “Do you consider yourself vain, Lup?”

Lup hesitates. “I mean,” she says, licking her lips and looking at the back of Lucretia’s head. “Sometimes, sure. I care about my appearance. But it’s not my...it’s not something I’d be upset about, if something majorly changed.”

Lucretia sighs. “I always prided myself on...on not caring. Isn’t that vanity, anyway? Pride? What’s the difference.”

“What changed?” Lup says.

Lucretia shrugs. “I had to look at myself every day. Without ever changing.” She spits in the sink and turns on the water. “Don’t you get sick of yourself? And then, every year, nothing. Nothing.”

“You’ve changed,” Lup says. Lucretia looks at her reflection again. “You change your hair. What you wear. What you say, what you do.”

“All I do is write, draw, and sit in bed thinking about what to write or draw. What uses are our talents when we’re just...we’re just _waiting_?”

Lup wants to say something but finds all she can do is shake her head. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t know. Really.”

“No. I’m sorry.” Lucretia sighs and her body sags. “I shouldn’t be giving you a hard time.” She turns the faucet off and silence hangs in the air.

“It’s not that,” Lup says. “We all think those things.”

Lucretia smiles. “I know.”

“Hey,” Lup says, taking a step closer. She touches the small of Lucretia’s back and lets her fingers linger there. Lucretia flinches at first, but then relaxes, watching Lup in their reflection. Lup steps closer again, and their bodies brush. Lup kisses Lucretia’s neck. Lucretia leans back. 

No one disturbs them in the restroom that evening. They leave separately but Lucretia comes back to Lup’s room that night, when everyone else is asleep, and crawls into bed beside her, nestling in the crook of Lup’s arm. They stroke each other’s hair and whisper all night about anything they can think. Lup tells Lucretia about her favorite books. About Taako burning food when he first got into cooking. About womanhood. About being touched. About Barry. About music, and orgasms, and crying during sex, and sometimes wanting it to hurt, and then again about art, and practice, and kissing, and the smell of smoke from campfires, how it clings to everything.

Lucretia stays.

-

Barry doesn’t touch her anymore.

Not that he ever really did before. Whatever closeness they have only borders on that physical intimacy. He used to reach for it and Lup would too, and now he hesitates and hovers and waits.

On a piano bench, Lup locks her arm in his and leans on his shoulder.

Barry shifts and looks down at her. She can’t see his eyes, staring at the keys, but she knows he’s looking, probably frowning, eyebrows furrowed and lines in his forehead creased deeply.

“How many times d’you think we’ll have to do this?” Lup says, loosening her grip on Barry’s arm.

He shrugs under her touch. “We’re almost at fifty.”

Lup closes her eyes. “I know.”

“Maybe it’s in increments. Like, quarters. Fifty or seventy-five could be the last.”

“Or a hundred.”

“Or a hundred,” he says, nodding. “You know, when I realized - when I realized we were looping, I thought, this will be impossible. I’ll...I’ll figure, I’ll have rather died then - then keep going, after so long.”

Lup nods. “Yeah,” she says.

“But we’re all still here.”

“Yes, for some reason, we’re still there.”

“We’ve gotten very good at this.”

Lup smiles. “We have,” she says. “I never thought I’d learn a string instrument.”

Barry hums. “I never thought I’d see Lucretia unravel.”

Lup moves back and looks at him. “Unravel?” she says. “What are you saying?”

Barry smiles at her. “Sorry. Maybe that’s the wrong word. I don’t mean it badly.”

“Then how do you mean it,” she persists.

Barry sighs and tilts his head back, shifting away from Lup to give them both extra room between their bodies. “All I mean to say is that, in the time I’ve known Lucretia, she’s always been rather closed off. Which isn’t to say - I don’t mean to say she isn’t a kind person, or that she doesn’t have the capacity for love, but...she’s always shut herself off from...from having friends, or close ones.”

“Do you consider her a friend?” Lup says, picking at the edge of her shorts.

Barry shrugs. “I don’t consider her _not_ a friend. But even now, even after all this time, we’ve never been close. I think she - I think she may not know how to process those types of situations.”

Lup shakes her head. “You’re overthinking it.”

Barry chuckles. “You may be right,” he admits, scratching the back of his neck. “In fairness, it’s not as if I’m particularly friendly with Merle or Davenport, either.”

“That’s - I mean, they aren’t Lucretia.”

“No,” Barry says, nodding, “they aren’t.”

“Unraveling?” Lup says, prompting Barry to explain himself further.

“She’s...opening, I think. For the first time in all the years I’ve known and worked with Lucretia, she’s opening up, and I just - I wonder if her defense mechanisms might not be the most friendly. Like, a Venus fly trap.”

“Don’t,” Lup says, her body snapping into rigid stiffness. “That’s not fair.”

“I know it’s not.”

“I’m not a fly.”

“God, Lup, I know. That’s not what I meant.”

Lup stands up, brushing off her thighs. “I’ll see you later,” she says, glancing at Barry one more time. He hesitates but then nods again. He doesn’t say anything else as Lup leaves the practice room.

As she steps outside into the blaring sun, she blinks and two tears drop off of her face.

“Stupid,” she hisses, rubbing her thumb across her lower lashline. “Stupid,” she says, softer this time, and heads back to the ship.

-

“It’s hard liquor.”

“I...know that,” Lucretia says, still eyeing the mason jar. “But why are you drinking it alone in your bedroom?”

Lup shrugs. “Because I’m bored,” she says.

Lucretia smiles. “That’s fair. You know, I hear Merle and Magnus were procuring some really…” She pauses, pressing a finger to her lip as if trying to find the word. “‘Dank grass,’ is I think what they called it.”

Lup snorts a laugh and reaches for the jar.

“Please don’t drink directly from that,” Lucretia says, leaning against the desk in Lup’s room. “I don’t want you to embarrass yourself when it inevitably ends in your shirt.”

Lup huffs a breath through her nose and says, “Hand me a shot glass then.”

Lucretia turns around and shuffles through Lup’s desk until she reaches the set of three glasses. She takes the heaviest one, thick rims and gold embossing, and holds it out for Lup. Lup reaches to take it but Lucretia pulls back.

“No,” she says. “Share, first.”

Lucretia steps closer and bends over so Lup can pour a shot. Lucretia downs it and shudders.

“Disgusting,” she says, blanching. “How in the hell do you drink this stuff? Do we have any mixers?”

“I’m not wasting my time diluting this shit,” Lup says, taking the empty glass and pouring herself a shot. She sets the jar down on the bedside table and pats her comforter for Lucretia to sit. Lucretia sinks onto the bed as Lup downs the drink.

“What is it?” Lucretia says. “Moonshine?”

“Something like it,” Lup says. “It’s not like you drink, anyway.”

“Ah,” Lucretia says. She bites her lip and looks away from Lup. “Not often, no.”

“What’re you here for? We have an appointment I didn’t know about?”

Lucretia hesitates. “A girl can’t visit?” she says, her voice bordering on soft enough to be a murmur. Lup watches Lucretia’s chest rise with every breath. They’re the intentional type of breaths, the kind that take thinking to accomplish. Lup sits up, sets down the glass, and touches a strand of Lucretia’s hair.

“Growing it out again?” she says, wrapping the curl around her finger.

Lucretia’s eyes flutter shut.

“Like you said,” she says, leaning in towards Lup, “always changing.”

“I don’t think you’re cold.”

Lucretia opens her eyes and smiles. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Lup rests her hand on Lucretia’s neck.

“If you mean my body, then yes, I’m quite warm. Wish we could just end up on a temperate planet, one of these days.”

“No,” Lup says, gliding the pad of her index finger across Lucretia’s pulse. Lucretia’s eyelids flutter but she stays completely still, hands in her lap. Lup brushes her knuckles over Lucretia’s collarbone. Her tank top is made of a light, woven fabric, a silvery blue that hangs loose on her frame, exposing the swell of her breasts, the dotting of beauty marks against her deep skin. Lucretia is fidgeting now, pulling at a loose string on her shorts. They don’t match the camisole, a stark navy blue color. 

Lup pulls her hand back.

“Then, what?”

“Come here.”

Lucretia turns to look Lup in the eye. She parts her lips, maybe to say something, but nothing comes out and she’s picking up her hands, twisting her body to crawl closer to Lup.

Lup cradles Lucretia’s face and kisses her forehead.

Lucretia closes her eyes. She’s quivering.

Lup kisses each eyelid, then Lucretia’s cheeks, and then her mouth.

Lucretia opens her mouth, lets Lup inside.

“Is this...is this okay?” Lucretia says and draws back.

“Yeah. You’re safe.”

Lucretia laughs. “That’s not what I mean,” she says, but starts to unbutton Lup’s loose flannel anyway. She bends her neck to press kisses along Lup’s collarbone and down her chest. They shift into a more comfortable position and Lucretia’s sucks on Lup’s breasts, presses her fingers into Lup’s ribs, and crawls further down the bed.

Between Lup’s legs, Lucretia sits up, flicking her hair back. “Do you have a hair band?” she says quickly, and Lup scrambles to grab one from the bedside table. Lucretia smiles and sits up further to tuck her hair back, looking down between Lup’s open thighs. “Are you wearing underwear?”

Lup laughs. “No, of course not,” she says, chuckling until Lucretia’s interrupts her. She palms Lup through her shorts and Lup gasps, tenses, and then relaxes before Lucretia dips down to press her mouth against Lup’s cock through the fabric. Lucretia stays like that, now lying flat on her stomach, mouthing along the length, wetting Lup’s shorts.

Blood rushes simultaneously to Lup’s cock and her face; Lucretia’s touch is both delicious and humiliating, and Lup’s already shaking, tension driving her to rock her hips for more friction, even as Lucretia gently pins her hips down.

“Please,” Lup says, and it sounds more like a strangled whisper than she’d hoped. Lucretia hums, and the vibration of her lips is almost nothing but still sends a shock through Lup’s body. “Luce, c’mon,” she says, making more assertive thrusts of her hips.

“Be patient,” Lucretia says, leaning back and cracking her neck. “I’ll get there.”

Lup sighs and tries to relax.

“There,” Lucretia says. “Thank you.”

Lup waits. After a moment of Lucretia stretching out her shoulder, she hooks her fingers into Lup’s shorts and starts tugging them off. Lup lifts her hips and wiggles a bit as Lucretia pulls the shorts off and tosses them on the floor.

Lup shivers as Lucretia envelops the head of her cock in the warmth of her mouth. There’s a moment where Lucretia is totally still, fingers wrapped around Lup and tongue pressed to the tip, and then she lowers her head, taking more towards the back of her throat until she has to stop again, breathe through her nose, and stroke what she can’t fit.

“You’re gorgeous,” Lup says, and Lucretia hums and shuts her eyes. She starts to bob her head, slowly at first taking just a little more with each movement, urging Lup’s cock into her throat. Lup tries to breathe steadily.

Lucretia pulls off, but keeps jerking Lup’s cock. “Can you talk to me? Please?” Her voice is shot, a little shaky, and Lup nods, dropping her head back on the pillow, her heart racing. Lucretia starts to suck again.

Lup mutters, “Please,” and then, “Please, don’t stop,” unsure where to start. That’s enough to egg Lucretia on, who pulls herself forward, wrapping her free around around Lup’s though and moaning around Lup’s cock. “You’re - you’re so beautiful and...and so _good_ at this. Shit.” She jerks her hips and Lucretia makes a quiet noise but follows it up with a deep, humming moan. “Why did we wait? Shit. Why did we _wait_ so _fucking_ long? All I could think - all I could think about at night - just your mouth, and your hair, and God, Luce, you’re so fucking much.” Lucretia draws a throaty groan from Lup, who’s now pushing her hips up in earnest.

When Lup looks at her, Lucretia’s face is flushed, sweat beading on her forehead and tears welling in the corner of her eyes. Her shoulders are shaking just slightly - Lup can only tell because she’s looking for it - but she’s immersed and so is Lup.

Lup’s mind and stomach start to twist and she sighs and squeezes her thighs, pressing Lucretia closer. 

“Just - there were years, just, wanting to touch you, settling for myself, all I could ever think about was you, Luce, your mouth and your cunt and the way you twist your tongue, I can’t ever get enough, please, just keep going.”

Lucretia shuts her eyes and sinks down, rubbing her tongue along the shaft and then hollowing her cheeks.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Lup gasps. “I’m - _Lucretia_...”

She bucks her hips into Lucretia’s mouth and clenches the sheets as she comes with a shout. Lucretia stills again and Lup blinks hard as she spills into Lucretia’s mouth. Lucretia swallows around her and then slides off, come at the corner of her mouth. She wipes it away with the back of her hand and Lup tosses an arm over her eyes.

“Don’t look at me,” she says, and Lucretia laughs, her voice a little broken.

“That good?”

“That good.”

Lucretia waits between Lup’s legs, kneeling and still fully clothed. Once Lup’s recovered she sits up and holds out her arms.

“C’mere.”

Lucretia smiles and climbs into Lup’s lap. Lup forces her focus, pulling down Lucretia’s shorts and panties. She starts with two fingers, pushing apart Lucretia’s folds and spreading her wetness.

“God, Luce,” Lup says. “You’re so fucking hot.”

Lucretia shakes her head and Lup goes quiet. Lucretia’s hands are tight on her shoulders, using her to stay upright. Lup fingers Lucretia’s clit slowly for a moment then dips a finger inside her. Lucretia shudders and drops her hips.

“More,” she says, and Lup abides her, slides in her middle finger. Lucretia opens for her easy, her cunt wet all over and slick inside. Lup works on an angle, watching Lucretia’s face twist and twitch with every thrust. “Forward, forward,” Lucretia says, and Lup makes her fingers a slight hook. Lucretia gasps. “Keep going.”

Lup manages to rub her palm against Lucretia’s clit with every other thrust of her fingers, but that seems secondary by the way Lucretia keeps trying to make more. 

It’s an easy enough rhythm to keep up and Lup stares at Lucretia as they do. Every other night they’ve spent like this has been subdued, quiet with attempts to remain casual, to be unthinking, to think about coming and touching and nothing else.

Lup isn’t sure when it changed.

Lucretia cries out, digging her fingers into Lup’s shoulders and clenching around Lup’s hand. The seconds drag on, Lup studying every fracture on Lucretia’s face, the way her teeth meet her bottom lip and her eyelashes flutter until she drops on Lup’s shoulder with a dry sob. Lup withdraws her fingers and strokes Lucretia’s clit until Lucretia is shaking and saying, “Stop, stop, thank you, _God_ ,” and then murmuring more nonsense as she clings to Lup.

They end up face to face on their sides, staring at each other.

“I’m still not cold?” Lucretia says finally, sweeping her knuckles along Lup’s cheekbone.

Lup smiles. “You’re not,” she confirms.

“I don’t mean to be,” Lucretia says, heaving a sigh. “Is that the way everyone else sees me?”

Lup shakes her head, scooting closer to kiss Lucretia’s lips. “That’s not what I mean - I just - I think - the way you see yourself, is…”

“I know.”

“I just want you to know…” Lup hesitates. “Your perception of yourself, versus who you really are, versus how others see you - none of those things have to be alike. None of those things have to be true, at any point, at any _moment_.”

“You’re so wise,” Lucretia says, chuckling.

“I mean it. Lucretia. I _mean_ it.” She tangles their fingers together. Lucretia is quiet, looking at the space between their bodies. “You don’t have to be anyone, do anything, that you don’t want to do.”

Lucretia drapes her arm over Lup’s body.

“I hear you. Thank you.”

“Are you doing what you want to be doing?” Lup says. She can’t help herself.

“More than anything.”

“Can we keep...keep doing this?”

Lucretia meets Lup’s eyes. “I’d like that,” she says, as Lup brushes a stray strand of hair that’s fallen out of her ponytail away from her eyes.

“I think the years will pass a little easier, if we’re not quite so alone.”

Lucretia looks up through her eyelashes. “I’ve never quite known how to not be alone. It’ll be interesting to learn.”

“Well, it takes however long it takes. And we’ll do it together. Until we finish this, and then…”

“And then?”

Lup shrugs. “Then maybe we can keep going.”

“I’d like that,” Lucretia says,

“But tonight. Just here. You, and me. Here.”

“Just here.”

Lup sits up and grabs the moonshine, taking a slug. Lucretia laughs and sits up to lean against her shoulder, taking the jar when Lup hands it to her.

“We’ll finish this off and sleep, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lucretia murmurs, but before they can finish the alcohol, Lucretia’s drifted off leaning on Lup’s shoulder. 

It’s enough.


End file.
